"I thought you'd be kicking back today", in light of the midnight crash between the motorcycle, the go-kart, and two ostriches.
(kicking back comes from the Latin ~ Balagopalottoknicker meaning lean back, put your feet on the old
balago ottoman, and stick your hand in your shorts)
When you "kick back", "kick it back", or "kick it" what you are doing is relaxing.
One night, German, Fredrick the Glob threw his legs up on his out of work Cossack butler who was gathering cold
klinkers off the floor, while wearing a bear skin coat. Fredrick sighed and said, "
GUTTEN KOSAK".
A passing Englishman, by the name of John
Wasserman (which means man who pass much water from
only one beer) thought he had said hassack. Wasserman rushed home to England and threw a sheepskin over a strumpet. Whenever Wasserman was kicking back and havin a cold
Leinenkugel's from Bavaria, he would bellow, "HASSACK", and the
stumpet came running with the sheepskin blanket.
Englishman, David Stool improved on the hassack. Stool was a furniture maker, and began manufacturing a padded piece to match his chairs. Thus was born the Foot Stool.
I know this to be English. One night in a London bar filled with the village people, I heard one man say to another, in a very cockney accent, "May I push your stool in."
Just a tidbit. In 1650, during the Reformation, English law decreed it illegal to keep strumpets at home any longer. Sales of Foot Stools increased greatly, and David Stool became a
Hundredaire.
Example:
Anyhow, back to the meaning of kicking back, if you are sitting at home with your friends doing absolutely nothing, you can say that you are "just kicking it". This expression is considered to be slang and therefore used only in informal contexts.
Here are a few examples;
*After the exam, my friends and I
kicked it at home last night.
*Some people complain that most
government employees go to the office, just kick it back until they have to go home.
*This expression has more or less the same meaning as "chill out".
*I have a new foot stool and I'm kicking back tonight with a cold
Leinenkugel.